Photographer seeks 100 centenarians for '10,000 Years' project

Danny Goldfield is in Massachusetts searching for one man and one woman over 100.

Photographer Danny Goldfield has traveled the country meeting centenarians.

Nicolaus Czarnecki/Metro

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A little over a year ago, photographer Danny Goldfield left his apartment in Brooklyn, hopped in a van and set out on a journey around the country.

His mission: meet 100 people in the U.S. who are more than 100 years old — one man and one woman in each of the 50 states — and take snapshots of lives a century in the making.

“I have this sensation that if I do a good enough job and capture the spirit of these people, you may get an idea of what it’s like to live 10,000 years. That’s how I think of it,” Goldfield, 48, told Metro.

Goldfield is taking his time. After a year’s worth of traveling from town to town from the Pacific Northwest to New Orleans, often completely at random, he’s taken photos of 26 centenarians in 16 states, he said.

Now the nomad’s travels have brought him to Massachusetts. While he’s here — staying in Lexington with his 85-year-old father, who is ill — Goldfield hopes he’ll find two from among the state’s oldest residents who will welcome him and his camera into their lives.

From Goldfield's website: " Miguel, 102 years old lives in New Jersey. He is the most fit centenarian, always looking for an angle, playing the lottery and at the pool table."

Danny Goldfield

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Goldfield prefers to find his subjects by chance: driving to a diner in Livingston, Montana, then asking around, or calling in on a whim to an AM radio station in northern California.

He crossed paths with this newspaper when he reached out to a Metro intern, asking for help.

When he settles on one centenarian, he said, he tries to get to know as much about them as he can, sometimes moving in with them for days at a time, following them to churches, sitting with them in gardens.

A feat most can’t claim, he’s asked a lot of people about what it means to look back on a century’s worth of life.

“One-hundred years is a long time,” Goldfield said. “That means over 36,500 times, they’ve gotten up and said, ‘Here we go again,’ and faced another day.”

He interviewed Inger, a 100-year-old woman from Wyoming who told him she helped hide Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Denmark. He photographed her with Nina, her niece and caretaker. They went to the hootenanny.

From Goldfield's website: "Edith is a centenarian living in Palm Desert, California. She opens her cabinet and pulls out photo albums, news clippings, commendations, and other books and papers. Accomplishments and memories all spilled out across her carpeting."

Danny Goldfield

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He met Edith, a 102-year-old “fashionista of the desert” who owned a boutique clothing store in California. He took pictures as Edith sat on her living room floor, thumbing through photos and news clippings, scattering them on the carpet.

You can help finance his journey by visiting his online store. He’s also offering production credit to those who send him $1. He hopes to recruit 10,000 donors.

From Goldfield's website: "Martha is a centenarian living in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. When I met her I was told that she is very afraid of snakes, even snake skins frighten her. I also learned that at 9 years old Martha had polio and was told she would never walk again. By 10 she was walking because of her mom’s insistence and care. At 99 years old Martha had a stroke and again lost her ability to walk. She was down about the wheelchair she required. When her great great granddaughter arriver Martha lit up and gushed. They greeted and kissed and Martha’s whole face and head smiled as she watched the child play and run. Martha turned to me and said, 'I wish a snake would come and scare me into walking!'"